The Ghana Association of Business Education Teachers (GHABET) have expressed grave concern over the denial of business students by the nursing training institutions and called on the Ministry of Education to reverse the trend.

According to GHABET, nursing training schools have persistently and without any apparent reasons refused admissions of SHS graduates, who pursued elective business subjects, emphasizing that, such discrimination was baseless and government must critically look at it.

The National President of GHABET, Mr Godwin Osei Marfo, who made the call at the 23rd National Conference of the Association in Koforidua, said “In spite of obvious value of business education in broadening the minds and sharpening the power of analysis of those who pursue it, SHS graduates who did business as elective and wish to further their education in certain professions are not allowed and this seriously needs to be reversed.”

He argued that all SHS students, their elective subjects notwithstanding, do the same core subjects comprising Mathematics, Integrated Science, Social Studies and English Language, and therefore, it was wrong for one to be denied the interest to pursue any profession of choice afterwards.

Mr Marfo recalled that until recently, through the intervention of GHABET, the Colleges of Education, were also denying business students, access to offer professional training in teaching and called on the Ministry of Education to treat the matter with all the urgency it deserves.

The National President noted that the theme of the conference, which is “Overcoming the challenges of business education In Ghana: the role of stakeholders,” was to create the platform for all stakeholders to deliberate on the seeming discrimination against business students.

He announced that through the efforts of the GHABET, there has been an unprecedented pass rate in business elective subjects in almost every school offering business programme, and commended members of the Association for their commitment towards effective teaching.

Dr J.K. Abledu, the Vice Rector of Koforidua Polytechnic, called for the teaching of creativity and intuition alongside quantitative and analytical skills to give students real world experience that would guide them throughout their careers.